Hard as Nails

Kurtz's last sight was Ke

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Kurtz became aware of two things as he regained consciousness in the moving war wagon of an SUV. The first was the residual chest pain and overall reaction to the taser blast—his entire body was twitching and tingling, hurting the way a leg or foot hurts after it falls asleep and has to come back to circulatory life. The second thing he noticed was that his headache was gone. Completely gone. For the first time since he'd been shot almost a week earlier.

I should call Dr. Singh at the hospital and tell him about this new therapy for concussion.

"Ah, Mr. Kurtz, I see you're joining us," said Brian Ke

Kurtz opened his eyes. He was in the backseat of the Laforza, wedged between Ke

"Pierce Brosnan," managed Kurtz.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You look like that James Bond actor—Brosnan," said Kurtz. "I haven't been able to think of his name until now." The headache was gone.

Brian Ke

"And you said you were Sean Michael O'Toole's younger brother, too," said Kurtz. "You were only, what? Twenty years old when you sprung him?"

"Just turned twenty-one, actually," said Ke

"And who did you douse with gasoline and leave behind?"

"No one of any importance, old sport," said Ke

They exited the Skyway at Ridge Road and took it into downtown Lackawa

They continued east on Franklin Street past Curly's Restaurant, past the hole downtown, and parked in an empty lot behind Our Lady of Victory Basilica, just across the street from Father Baker's former orphanage.

"What do you…" began Kurtz.

"Hush," said Ke

Kurtz nodded.

They got out of the SUV and walked the fifty paces or so along the main avenue here, up the west side of the huge church. Kurtz remembered the hundreds of times his class from Father Baker's had walked from the orphanage school behind them to the basilica for eleven A.M. mass.

The man who'd been driving opened a side door. They came into the basilica under the west staircase where Kurtz and Rigby had climbed to the choir loft that night so many years ago. The small supply room under the staircase where they'd exited the catacombs that night was now chained and padlocked.

Brian Ke

The supply room's shelves were empty. It looked as if no one used this small space any longer. The stairway to the underground tu

There was a final door and a final padlock in the dank space at the bottom of the stairs. Ke

Ke

"No one knows why Father Baker put these catacombs under his basilica, old sport," Brian Ke

Kurtz tried to remember the way he and Rigby had come when they were kids. He couldn't.

"You may speak now, Mr. Kurtz," said Ke

"What next?" said Kurtz. There was a half-inch or so of water in this tu

"Oh, I mink you know what comes next."

"Why here?"

Ke

"You had the Pinto bugged," said Kurtz.

"Of course."

"And my office, too?" His heart was pounding.

"Ah, well, not quite, old sport," said Brian Ke

"Not quite," continued Ke

They came to another junction where steps went up to a small tu

Small things squealed and scurried ahead and behind them in the darkness. Their footsteps did not echo because of the water underfoot.

"Rats, don't you know," said Ke

"I'm not," said Kurtz.

They came into a wider area of the tu

Ke